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Free Thinking Episodes

  1.

    Power: A User's Guide

    From the Hay Festival, Matthew Sweet discusses the many forms of political power

  2. Power to the People?

    David Runciman, Rod Liddle, Caroline MacFarland Danny Dorling & Anne McElvoy in Gateshead

  3. Postcolonial Derby: Privateers, Pieces of Eight and the Postwar Playhouse

    What connects a "double elephant" sized map, an academy of dissenters and Daniel Defoe?

  4. Post-War Germany

    Forging the modern German nation from the moral and material ruins of WW2

  5. Post-Soviet culture, Sesame Street and punk

    A look at Russian punk protest and a version of US TV's Big Bird, Bert and Ernie.

  6. Post Truth & Derrida

    What is Derrida's influence in the 'post-truth' age?

  7. Positive & negative politics, "intellectual vices" and the face you bring to work.

    Sir Richard Evans, Margaret Heffernan, Isabel Oakeshott, Quassim Cassam join Anne McElvoy

  8. Portraits

    As the NPG re-opens we look at portraiture in art, photography, documentary & oral history

  9. Political Visions

    Anne McElvoy sets off in search of the sunlit uplands

  10. Polari Prize winners

    Pleasure & responsibility in LGBTQ+ art with the Polari Prize & photographer Sunil Gupta

  11. Poetry and Science: A 19th century metre on the (uni)verse

    Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Greg Tate, Sam Illingworth & Sunayana Bhargava join Anne McElvoy.

  12. Poet Daljit Nagra and crime writer Val McDermid

    Daljit Nagra and Val McDermid talk about their writing, as part of Durham Book Festival

  13. Podcasting difficult histories

    Matthew Sweet discusses difficult histories with 3 BBC podcast hosts at the Hay Festival

  14. Podcast: There Is No I in Team

    MP Johnny Mercer, Theatre Director Elizabeth Newman and former footballer Paul Fletcher.

  15. Pleasure

    Cooking, nature, music, colour - what's your lockdown pleasure?

  16. Playing God

    Patrick Barlow on his play The Messiah, Daisy Black on Stoke's new medieval mystery play

  17. Plastic and Clay

    The extraordinary uses of two contrasting materials.

  18. Plagues, Urban Inequality and Restricted Books

    Artist Penny Woolcock, global health researcher Thomas Bollyky and Jane Stevens Crawshaw

  19. Pirates

    From Treasure Island to Kynance Cove, Anne Bonney to Captain Pugwash: Anne McElvoy hosts

  20. Piranesi and disturbing archecture

    Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is one of Matthew Sweet's guests

  21. Picnics

    From Picnic at Hanging Rock to an Iron Curtain Pan European picnic

  22. Philosophy and Film

    Rana Mitter, Sally Potter and philosophers discuss whether you can philosophise with film

  23. Philosophical tennis, hidden beaches and Eleanor Marx.

    Matthew Sweet takes a walk around Eleanor Marx's old neighborhood.

  24. Phillis Wheatley

    The enslaved African American woman, Phillis Wheatley who became a celebrated poet.

  25. Phaedra, Cretan palaces and the minotaur

    Knossos - birthplace of myths and tragedies - explored by Rana Mitter and Natalie Haynes

  26. Peter Brook

    Peter Brook, 1925-2022: the theatre director in conversation with Matthew Sweet in 2013.

  27. Perfecting The Body

    Eugenics to cyborgs: Adam Rutherford, Clare Chambers, Harry Parker & Xine Yao discuss

  28. Peace

    In the week of VE Day, Matthew Sweet discusses what peace has meant since 1945

  29. Patti LuPone

    The musicals star on politics, performing, #Me Too and her Italian-American roots.

  30. Patricia Lockwood and André Aciman

    Two American authors talk to Laurence Scott about their sense of time, place and self

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